Taliban moves accused aid workers to "safer location"

Eight foreign aid workers on trial in the Afghan capital, Kabul, accused of preaching Christianity have been moved to a "safer location" following the possibility of US retaliation in Afghanistan, an Australian official in Islamabad confirmed to IRIN on Friday. "I have been told by the Taliban Foreign Ministry in Kabul that they have been moved to a safer place, but we don't know where," Alastar Adams, a diplomat at the Australian embassy in Islamabad, said.

The aid workers, comprising two Australians, two Americans and four Germans, were arrested in early August by Taliban religious police, and were being detained at an undisclosed detention centre in Kabul. The Taliban said they had caught two women - an American and an Australian - showing Christian material to an Afghan family on a computer at their home in Kabul.

Adams added that he was told that the aid workers were in "good health", and that he felt the court case was nearing completion. He explained that the defence counsel for the aid workers, from a practice in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, had received visas for Afghanistan.

However, he was not sure whether they had been able to cross into the war-torn country given the current situation. "We hope that the aid workers will be expelled, so they can come out at a time when there is uncertainty," Adams said.

The trial has been taking place behind closed doors. Diplomats were able to meet the aid workers, but were forced to leave last week following the terrorist attacks on the US on 11 September. Under the Islamic Shari'ah law practised in Afghanistan, preaching Christianity is punishable by death.